Effectiviteit van de Melodic Intonation Therapy (MIT).

Background:
Aphasic patients with limited verbal output often show beneficial effect of singing on language production. The MIT was devised to use this capacity in the treatment of aphasia. It uses the melodic aspects of language, such as rythm and intonation. Many case studies have reported spectacular results after MIT. At the moment, there is level III evidence for MIT, mainly for the chronic phase.

Aim:
Establish a higher level of evidence for MIT, both for the chronic phase and for the post-acute phase, when aphasia treatment is regularly provided. Further, it will be investigated whether the efficacy of MIT depends on patient characteristics, such as age, gender, location and seize of the lesion, and severity of the aphasia.

MIT leads to improved verbal communication in aphasic patients with severe output disorders.

1. T1 (before treatment):

Assessments: Sabadel, repetition of trained and untrained items, AAT, ANELT, PALPA 45 (word comprehension);

2. T2 (after 6 weeks of treatment):

Assessments: Sabadel, repetition of trained and untrained items, AAT, ANELT, PALPA 45 (word comprehension);

3. T3 (after 12 weeks):

Assessments: Sabadel, repetition of trained and untrained items, AAT, ANELT, PALPA 45 (word comprehension).

Melodic Intonation Therapy (MIT):
Language production therapy in which the melodic aspects of language (rythm, intonation) are used to train the production of sentences. MIT is given for 6 weeks, 5 hour per week.

Non-MIT (control condition in post-acute group):
Comprehension and production of written sentences. In the control condition, therapy is also given for 6 weeks, 5 hours per week.



No treatment (control condition in chronic group): No individual treatment for 6 weeks. Participation in group treatment (1 time per week) is allowed.